


I Found a Masterpiece in You

by PrincessStark



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ink!kink, M/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 09:32:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessStark/pseuds/PrincessStark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve finds a fascination in Tony's tattoos, one in particular, and decides he needs to get his first one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Found a Masterpiece in You

Steve let his fingers trail down over Tony's arm. He still couldn't get over how amazing Tony was. It had taken them a little more than a year to get to this point, and he still wasn't even sure where this was. He didn't understand what they had. It wasn't like what he had had with Bucky, but he was sure he felt something for the man laying beside him in the bed.

He and Bucky had known each other for years, and Bucky had loved him even before the serum turned Steve into the super soldier he was now. They had something no one of that age would ever understand. Sure, Steve knew other men of The Howling Commandos who were like that also, but it wasn't something anyone talked about. They wouldn't. In those days, loving another man would get you locked up in an asylum. That wasn't where Steve wanted to live out the rest of his life. Not even that was better than waking up in the 21st century after a 75 year deep-freeze.

The 21st century was different. Being different was acceptable, more so than it had been in the 1940s. He still wasn't sure when it had happened, but something Tony said about the '70s and _free love_ and _women's lib_ had something to do with all of it. Steve didn't mind. Things had changed, and he was able to easily change along with them. He and Bucky were no longer together, and it wasn't each of them "dying" that had done that either. Sure, it played a part in it, but Steve knew it wasn't just that.

Steve had thought Bucky had died, he watched him drop off that train with no way of doing anything to save him. It was the hardest thing he'd ever had to go through in his life, even more so than waking up three quarters of a century later and _everyone_ else you have ever known long since passing away. But even when he and Natasha found him last year, things were different. It wasn't even the fact that when they first found him, Bucky didn't have a clue who either of them were. Bucky and Natasha had a history that Steve didn't find out about until the moment they came face to face with the Winter Soldier.

Bucky had amnesia from the fall and he hadn't even known who Steve was. In the interim between General Karpov finding his body in the snow and meeting up with Steve and Natasha again, Bucky had a brief affair with the Black Widow. When they met the Winter Soldier, both Natasha and Steve were in for a surprise. Steve found out his former lover and best friend was actually the Winter Soldier, and Natasha found out the Winter Soldier was Steve's friend Bucky from Brooklyn.

After Bucky had regained his memories, he confessed to Steve that he was in love with Natasha, and if she would have him, he wanted to be with her. Steve gave his best friend his blessing and watched as the two of them fell in love. Steve had felt a little bad for Clint who he knew had feelings for Natasha himself, but it wasn't long before Clint found solace in a certain flyboy who oddly enough bore a striking resemblance to Steve, but no one ever said anything. That was weird enough as it was without people making comments about it.

As for Steve, he found himself falling more and more in love with the genius, billionaire, philanthropist laying beside him in his bed. He'd moved into Avenger Tower not long after the incident with the Chitauri, but it wasn't then that the two of them got together either. Steve wasn't even sure they were _together_ now. There had been a brief period of time after things ended between Tony and Pepper that Tony had gone back to his playboy ways, but it hadn't lasted long at all. It wasn't even then that he and Steve slept together for the first time, but it was in the middle of all that that the two of them stopped being at each others throats and started really getting along.

It had only been a few months ago that something really happened between them. It had been late one night in Tony's lab where they both had been burning the midnight oil. Steve had been down there merely to alleviate his boredom. He didn't particularly like watching television all the time and everyone else in the house seemed to watch a great deal of it. And they always seemed to talk over it all the time. How could one possibly keep track of what was happening in any of the shows they watched when they were chattering about stuff that didn't even have to do with the show, but somehow they always managed to know exactly what had happened all the time.

Steve needed solace. Not that sitting in Tony's lab with Tony's blaring rock music would be considered solace to anyone else, Steve found a tranquility about the setting. Tony was completely and utterly relaxed in this element, and Steve found that relaxed him the most, never mind the heavy beats. His presence in the lab had been something both of them had gotten used to and it just seemed to be something they did after a while. But one night it morphed from being about quiet comfortability to something far more.

Steve had fallen asleep on the couch, something that he wasn't completely unaccustomed to doing, to find Tony passed out on his workbench. Usually it was Tony who came to wake Steve up to suggest he head to bed. Steve always urged him to go to bed at the same time, and they'd head up to the living quarters together. But that night had been different.

Steve gathered up his pencils, charcoal and sketchpad, leaving them there on the couch before walking over to Tony, letting his hand rest on the sleeping man's back. Steve had barely whispered his name when Tony moved only slightly, taking Steve's hand in his and pulling him into his arms. Their lips came together and Steve's eyes widened. He hadn't been expecting that, and honestly neither had Tony, but neither one of them pushed away from the other. They had come together in a way neither of them had expected right there on Tony's workbench. That had been just a few weeks ago.

They hadn't been together too many times since then, but it had only been this time that they'd actually taken their time with each other, getting to know the other's body, really taking the time to enjoy what the other really felt about and really enjoyed. The few times before had been nothing more than an urgent need to strip the other of their clothing and find their climax together. This time had been so much different. They had had dinner together, just the two of them in the tower. They hadn't planned a _dat_ e or anything, but the rest of the Avengers had been out.

They had been doing dishes together and Tony had come up behind him, sliding his hands around him from behind. His chest pressed up against Steve's back and his hands spanned the super soldier's chest. Steve's eyes fluttered shut at the sensation. He was glad the others were out. Not that he wanted to hide what they did, but because he was sure Tony probably wouldn't be doing this if the others were around.

"Do you know how hot you are when you're being domestic, Cap?"

Steve's cheeks turned bright red, swallowing hard and licking his lips. "Really?"

Tony nodded his head, his lips grazing along the skin at the bottom of his neck above the collar of his shirt at his back, pressing his pelvis against him. "Can't you feel what you've done to me?"

Steve's response was guttural, without words. Tony reached around him, turning off the faucet and turned his lover around to face him. He looked up into the pristine blues and shook his head. Steve wanted to ask what he was thinking, but anything he would have said was captured into Tony's mouth as he wrapped his arms around his neck, pulling him down to him more. Steve wrapped his arms around Tony and lifted him up to wrap his legs around his waist.

"Bedroom, Steve," Tony muttered against his lips, beckoning Steve to obey.

This time could have been heated, rushed and nothing like it had turned out to be. They took their time with each other, letting their eyes and their hands really learn each other's bodies. It had been something new for both of them. Steve realized that he was feeling something for the man lying next to him. He didn't know if it was love, but a part of him was afraid it was. Could Tony love him in return, or would this never be anything more than what it was now? What it was, Steve had no idea.

His fingers brushed over one of the tattoos Steve had discovered earlier on his lover's body. It was a beautiful piece of artwork, a phoenix bursting from the flames in the same vibrant gold and red as Tony's Iron Man suit. Steve had learned quite a bit about Tony in the time since he'd known him. The Internet was a really valuable resource. There wasn't anything you couldn't find on it, and Steve had done a lot of his research on the members of his team with it. There wasn't a whole lot to be found on Clint, Natasha and Thor, but there was quite a bit on Bruce and even more on Tony.

The phoenix on his hip reminded him of something he had said at the Stark Expo a few years ago, about a year before they had met each other. " _I'm not saying that from the ashes of captivity, never has a phoenix metaphor been more personified."_ He wondered if that is when he got this particular piece of artwork. It was beautiful. Steve wanted to draw it sometime tomorrow. Probably while he was sitting in the lab watching Tony work.

Tony shuddered a bit, curling into the warm body next to him. "You better stop that," the warning came without a hint of foreboding.

Steve smiled, leaning in and kissing Tony's shoulder. "What are you going to do about it?"

Tony turned swiftly, pinning him down on the bed and staring him down for a moment. Steve licked his lips and Tony couldn't help but stare at his luscious lips. "You're beautiful, you know that, Steve?"

Steve smiled up at him. "Everything beautiful about me came out of a bottle."

Those words didn't hurt like they had a year ago. They had gotten past all that. Tony really hadn't meant to say what he'd said on the helicarrier. And he knew Steve knew it too.

"No," Tony whispered, dipping down to lightly lick at Steve's lips. "You're beautiful from the inside." Yes, he was a complete sap in a relationship, being with Pepper had proved that. Not that he and Steve were officially in a relationship, but even if neither of them had defined it, they were.

Steve smiled, letting Tony's comment float in the air between them before speaking again. "You've got quite a few tattoos." He let his fingers trail over the phoenix tattoo again. "I really like this one."

Tony's breath hitched in his throat at Steve's fingers on his flesh. Even though their bodies were pressed together in their soft whisper, he couldn't believe that either of them were as calm as they were, not thinking about sex, well not only sex. What they had, even though it was as new as it was, wasn't just about the physical. It went far deeper than that.

"I designed it myself," Tony whispered against Steve's ear.

Steve should have known better than to suggest this, but the words were out before his brain could stop his mouth. "Maybe you could design me one."

Tony pulled back, looking into his lover's eyes and smiling a little impishly. "Captain America wants some ink?" He let his hand slide gently over the smooth skin of his ass. "You want to cover up this perfect body?"

Steve felt his cheeks burn red. "Is that how you see it, a coverup? I thought it was art."

Tony's brow arched in a slight smirk. "Always the sketch artist, even in bed?" He smiled, laying his hand flat on Steve's ass. "So, where did you want it? And what do you want it to be of?" He turned his head slightly, a gleam in his eyes. "I know! Property of Tony Stark, right here!" His fingers trailed along his lower back where it met his ass, skimming over his tailbone.

Steve shivered slightly. "Is that what you think, Stark? That I'm yours."

The smile playing across Tony's lips was delightful. "Definitely. Just as I am yours."

Steve's eyes widened. It was the closest they'd come to defining what they were, and he found he liked where this was going. "Well, then if that's how it is, I guess I wouldn't mind being branded with your moniker."

Tony chuckled. "You're ridiculous! Not going to put that on your ass, baby."

With the defining of their relationship, and then Tony calling Steve baby, he was sure they were in a relationship now. It didn't need to be said that they were dating or that they were even boyfriends, but they definitely were together and that was all Steve needed to know.

"Then what should we put on my body, and where?"

Tony pushed Cap to lay with his back straight on the bed. He let his fingers trail over his chest for a moment, lingering over his pecs. He smiled, pressing his palm to rest directly over his heart. "I'm thinking right here. This is where we should put it."

Steve inhaled deeply, licking his lips and swallowing hard. "Put what?"

Tony smiled up at him. "An integrated artpiece. Your shield, my arc reactor."

Steve let his hand cover Tony's over his chest, nodding. "I like that."

"I'll get one of my own too." He looked down at his own chest, scrunching up his face. "Probably have to put it over my breast though. My cleavage is kind occupied."

Steve shook his head, smiling softly. "You're an idiot."

"Yeah," Tony nodded on a whisper, looking up at him. "But I'm an idiot who's in love." Steve's eyes opened widely, his mouth falling suit. "What?" Tony smiled brightly. "Didn't expect that? Well, get used to it, because once you're loved by Tony Stark, you're always loved by Tony Stark." He didn't mention that he didn't love that many people, but he was sure that Steve understood. "And don't go saying you love me too. We don't need to get all sappy about this. I'm doing enough of that for the both of us."

"What if I want to?" Steve asked anyway.

Tony's breath caught in his throat. "Wh- You do?"

"I do, Tony. I lo-"

Steve's lips were captured by Tony in a searing kiss, taking his breath away. Steve wrapped his arms around Tony and brought him to lay against the length of his body. Steve felt the stark difference between Tony's chest and his arc reactor there against the spot they'd chosen to put his first tattoo. He was happy. The two of them fit together better than anything Steve had ever known before, and he was looking forward to the way things were going to be between them now. They were a together, and if their behavior didn't change around the others just yet, it wouldn't matter. The tattoo he'd be getting was enough to tell him all he needed to know. He was Tony's and Tony was his. They belonged to each other. They were one.


End file.
